


True North

by BabelGhoti (TheHandmadeTale), storyspinner70



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Chubby Thor, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Podfic, Podfic Available, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-06-20 08:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15529890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHandmadeTale/pseuds/BabelGhoti, https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyspinner70/pseuds/storyspinner70
Summary: Odin gifted Loki with an Midgardian compass when he was little, but there has only ever been one true north for him, even in worlds without one. No matter what changes or why, Loki knows only one final destination – where ever Thor is.Written for the 2018 pod_together collab.





	True North

[**MP3 (19:36 | 17,9 MB)** ](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2018/storyspinner70%20-%20True%20North%20%28read%20by%20BabelGhoti%29.mp3) (click to listen, right click+save to download)

**Title:** True North

 **Pairing:** Thorki (Thor/Loki)

 **Warnings:** Brief mentions of sex, no other real warnings

 **Summary:** Odin gifted Loki with an Midgardian compass when he was little, but there has only ever been one true north for him, even in worlds without one. No matter what changes or why, Loki knows only one final destination – where ever Thor is.

 **A/N:** Remember the MCU Thor and Avengers movies? Yeah, I do too, but completely ignored them. Almost completely canon divergent. What can I say? I spent too much time with Loki and now I do what I want! (With my own fics only, mores the pity.) Ragnarok never happened. Loki’s attack of NY may or may not have happened. Lots never happened, in fact, and lots did that exist solely in my head. Also, remember that magnets can make electricity and electricity can act on a magnet. Just throwing that out there into the ether.

  


**True North**

Odin had gone through mementos he had stored one day, a still tiny Loki and Thor chittering around him oohing and awwing over pretty but useless trinkets. He’d unearthed a small painted box and huffed in remembrance. He’d given it to Loki, quickly explaining the Midgardian idea of magnets and true north.

Thor had giggled in approval when Loki showed him his new treasure and waited less than patiently for his own. They had run through the halls after, their new cache of riches clutched in their sweat-slick hands.

The compass was lost for years, supplanted by new, more exciting treasures. Loki had been alive for more than three centuries when he found it again. An age when he still wondered at the rapid beating of his heart anytime Thor, woken by Loki slipping into his brother’s bed or back out again, grabbed hold of the nearest limb he could reach and held tight. When Thor, voice cracked and broken by sleep, asked exactly where his beloved brother was going.

Loki was surprised every time Thor acknowledged Loki had even been there much less when he continued to allow him to stay. Regardless, Loki couldn’t stop seeking the warmth of Thor’s bed over his own if he tried. And he had tried, even as he wondered at his soul deep need for his brother’s closeness.

He was careful not to question it any further than that though, and it was something neither Thor nor Loki spoke of in the revealing light of day. What happened in the dark was a secret all their own and they kept it, jealously, all to themselves. Soon enough, the compass was relegated once more to that same darkness.

It lay in the bottom of Loki’s wardrobe spinning to and fro in the darkness for another 600 years. Loki hadn’t sought Thor’s bed for centuries at this point, and Thor stopped looking at him from under sunkissed lashes not long after. The compass continued to spin in the dark.

**

Wars had come and gone. Thor and Loki stopped being brothers and then stopped being enemies and then started being something so much more complicated. They spent more time looking anywhere else and avoiding each other than they did anything.

Their mother died. Odin slept. Loki fell. The compass spun.

**

There was a darkness coming to Asgard. One Loki could feel in his very bones.

He had found himself on a lawless planet far from Asgard and, for once, stayed awhile. He was in a place he was known for nothing more than his wit and unparalleled avarice. His days were short and his nights long.

He was called Worldwalker and Sky Traveler, Silvertongue and Golden Voice. Gone was The Trickster, Shapeshifter, and God of Lies. Here, he was called ergi not with a sneer but with longing and hope.

He felt his absence from Thor like a festering, unhealing wound even buried as he was in flesh and the dark, greedy covetousness that he’d longed for so long. No matter who or what he possessed, it was never Thor and left him always unsatisfied.

He wondered if Thor missed him too.

Soon, he was awakened not by the echoing cries of desperate wanton need but by nightmares never remembered and never forgotten. All he could recall was darkness and screaming. Thousands of voices, every one wailing and incoherent but one. For days, Thor screaming wordlessly in the night echoed ceaselessly through Loki’s head.

After the third such dream, Loki called Heimdall and went home.

**

The compass was, like everything Loki had left behind, right where it had always been. Its arms ceaselessly spun, still looking for home in a world with no magnetic poles – even all these hundreds of years later. Loki watched it spin crookedly, feeling much the same. Centuries of twirling had worn the shaft, even with young Loki’s seidr to keep it running smoothly.

With a flick of his fingers, Loki renewed the magic, not sure why he was unwilling for the compass to stop even after all these years. He had just reached to close it and lay it down when the compass stopped spinning altogether, its arrow pointed directly at Loki’s chest.

“So that thing does work after all.”

“Brother,” Loki replied, snapping the compass shut. He did not turn.

“It’s been far too long. I’m glad you’re home.” Thor spoke, far closer to Loki’s ear than he was comfortable with.

“Are you?” There was no place for Loki to go without turning toward Thor.

“Longer still since you called me brother.”

“I apologize for the slip.”

“Is that what it was?”

“Don’t you have someone waiting for you somewhere? Oh, God of light and wonderousness?”

“No, Brother. I have no other place to be.”

Loki could feel Thor’s presence all along his back – a long line of uncomfortable heat drawing him backward like the long steady pull on a string.

“Why did you leave me, Brother?” Thor’s voice was low and dark.

“Why did you let me go?”

“You cannot hold a flame in your fist without smothering the flame and burning your flesh at the same time.”

Loki didn’t reply.

“There is a great feast in your honor at dusk. After, I would like...” Thor stopped. Loki turned his face; his profile open to Thor but his eyes firmly away from any part of him. “My door is always open to you,” Thor finally said.

Loki’s only reply was the solid thunk of his door closing after Thor left.

**

Loki wasn’t going to go to the feast. It might be in his honor in name, but he remembered how people felt about him on Asgard. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that anything was different. He would simply conceal himself and steal to the kitchen for some food later, Thor’s hopeful voice be damned.

When he entered the great hall, he was greeted with cheers and salutations he was not expecting. _They had to be appeasing their King_ , Loki thought. That was the only explanation he could think of. None of these people had liked him before he left. Oh, they were civil enough – too afraid of Thor’s displeasure to speak out – but none of them actually sought his company.

“Ah, Brother,” Thor boomed. “I was afraid I would have to come to drag you here myself.”

Loki scoffed an automatic response. “As if you could, you dundering oaf.”

“That’s King Oaf to you,” Thor replied, this a mere extension to an argument they’d started long ago and never finished. “But don’t think that just because I’ve gotten a little out of shape sitting on this throne that I couldn’t take you, Brother. I assure you I can.”

Loki’s eyes flew to Thor. He hadn’t seen him since he got back home, and he was shocked by what he saw. Thor was huge, as he’d always been, the muscles in his arms still bulging but somehow softer. Everything about him was softer. His face, his shoulders.

“Our King has definitely added a few _layers_ to his reign,” someone called then laughed obnoxiously.

If Loki had been able to tear his eyes away from Thor to search for the joker, he’d have missed the change in Thor’s expression. Though his smile widened, the sparkle in Thor’s eye flattened and dulled. He shifted forward as he boomed a laugh, but Loki saw him discreetly pull his tunic so it was looser over his stomach.

Only then did Loki look around. A few people were laughing, some tittered uncomfortably and some looked as if they were trying to ignore what happened altogether. It wasn’t hard to pick out the person who dared to needle at Thor. His wide open mouth and sharp elbows spearing his unfortunate neighbors to get them laughing were a dead give away.

Now, Loki was a very powerful sorcerer; something people in Asgard tended to forget. Partially because Loki was not stupid and kept the true range of his power to himself, and partially because growing up with the dark Prince underfoot had left most of the residents of Asgard dangerously complacent.

Loki stared at the man, cataloging him quickly. He was some kind of elf, but clearly not full blood. Loki had not been home in nearly a century, but he could tell this creature was not of Asgard. Quickly weighing risks, he reached out for the man’s mind. Loki could not read other people’s thoughts, but he could easily share his own.

The man abruptly stopped laughing, his eyes wide and confused, then frightened. He quickly finished the dregs of his ale and food and scrambled quickly out of the great hall, flinging overly solicitous goodbyes to the King and dragging his shocked traveling party with him.

Thor watched Loki steadily through it all. Once the man was gone, Loki looked steadily back, not betraying what he’d done with so much as the flicker of an eyelash.

“Come, Brother. We shall feast.”

And feast they did.

Loki sat beside Thor watching him discreetly, careful not to get caught looking. Up close, Thor was not only thicker but wider. He ate no more than Loki remembered him doing so before – hardly more than Loki himself. They were Gods. They ate and drank like they did everything – until they were satisfied.

Thor was clearly a good King. Loki had wandered earlier, cloaked and shifted into a plain peasant woman. The people seemed well and happy enough, and there wasn’t so much as a whisper of discontent with Thor on the throne. Asgard was doing as well as it had under Odin’s rule. Perhaps better.

Finishing the last of his meal, Loki leaned back in his chair with the remains of his wine, studying Thor openly as he laughed and talked with whomever he could hear. Thor was the God of Thunder, with lightning at his fingertips and clouds at his beck and call. Loki wondered how heavy his crown must feel now that Thor was bound so closely to the throne.

Loki was always called the sinful one, but Thor, oh Thor loved his excesses. Food, drink, sex, blood and war. These were the things that made Thor happy. Now duty kept him away from at least some of those. Loki could see the loss of sparring time clearly in the softened lines of Thor’s jaw. He could also see the steel of muscle residing underneath.

Norns forgive all those who thought the new softness to Thor’s body extended to his might.

Thor glanced up and caught Loki looking at him, discomfort coming over his features as he began to fiddle with his tunic yet again.

“I’m quite tired, Thor. I’m going to retire to my rooms. Do follow soon. I wish to speak with you while I’m still awake.”

Thor nodded. “Of course, Brother.”

**

In his rooms, Loki vanished his light armor, replacing it with a simple loose tunic and stepped out onto his balcony to wait for Thor.

“I am here, Brother. Where are you?”

Loki paused for just a moment then walked back into his room. Thor stood, somewhat uncharacteristically unsure, waiting for Loki to speak. Loki took the time to study Thor again instead.

As the silence stretched, Thor finally broke it himself. “What did you need to talk to me about, Brother?”

Loki took a deep breath. There were so many ways this could go. He didn’t really know what to say. His, “I missed you, Thor. I don’t want to spend my first night back alone,” startled him as much as it did Thor.

“Do you,” Thor paused a moment, “do you wish to find companionship?”

Loki raised his hand to Thor’s wincing but sincere face. “Just you, Thor. You’re all the companionship I need.”

Slipping his hand down, Loki reached for Thor’s. Thor hesitantly took Loki’s hand. Loki squeezed it gently and walked toward the bed.

Thor was always larger than Loki. A little taller, rib cage a little broader, shoulders a little wider. As he grew older and trained more, thick bands of muscle amplified the difference between them. Loki was strong, though his muscles were sleeker and less bulky.

Thor now was beefier than Loki had ever seen him, even at his most muscular. Reduced training, no more hunts and not being able to travel to other worlds looking for an enemy had left Thor with an extra layer of meaty flesh. Loki wanted to feel it under his hands and his mouth.

Turning back the covers on his bed, Loki motioned Thor to lie down first. Thor quickly removed his boots and cape and brought his knee up to climb into the bed. Loki quickly stopped him and tugged at Thor’s tunic. He had worn no armor to the feast but was still entirely too clothed.

When Thor hesitated, Loki flicked his fingers leaving Thor in his underwear, his clothes neatly folded in a chair by the fire.

“Come, Thor. Let me see you.”

Loki circled his brother slowly, not touching at first, but then letting his hands trail over Thor’s always warm skin. His fingers pressed down, indenting the soft layer of Thor’s body to the hard muscle underneath. Thor flinched, still waiting for Loki to laugh at his new, softer pudge. But Loki wasn’t laughing. Not now. Not with his hands on Thor’s warm, stretched skin.

“Come, Brother. Lie down.”

Thor climbed into the high bed, quickly pulling sheets and furs around him. Loki followed, burrowing past Thor’s cover to get to his flesh. Thor held his breath as Loki continued to explore – his even wider shoulders, his almost plump pecs and the abs that were still there though less defined.

Loki knew Thor. He knew Thor would not have been this self-conscious around anyone but Loki. Knew how much what he did now would matter.

“You are a big bear of a man, aren’t you Thor Odinson?” Thor started to speak, but Loki lay his fingers over Thor’s mouth. “I never imagined you larger than you already were. I wonder if I can still get my arms around you.”

“Loki,” Thor started.

“Shhh. Let’s see if I can.”

Loki pushed Thor to his back, Thor going willingly. Loki got to his knees and threw his tunic off so he could lay skin to skin on top of Thor. He rested there for a moment, then slid one arm under Thor’s thick neck and rolled them both so they were face to face. Loki slid both of his arms around Thor – one around his neck and the other over his side and under his arm, his hands hooked high on Thor’s shoulder blade.

“There, Brother,” Loki whispered into Thor’s hair. “I can still reach.”

Loki felt Thor bring his arms up, one burrowing under Loki’s waist and the other draping over Loki’s arm. In this position, Thor’s fleshier chest was pushed together and Loki buried his face right in the center.

“How long can you stay?” Thor asked. What he meant was, _don’t leave me again_.

“I don’t know exactly, but awhile,” Loki replied. What he meant was, _Brother, I’ll try_.

Loki still hadn’t told Thor about his dreams. They hadn’t talked about why he left in the first place, much less what brought him back. But there was time for that later.

After Loki had sated himself on Thor’s bulging belly and hefty ass. When he’d lost himself in Thor’s soft mouth and enormous cock. After he woke with his thighs aching and his arm asleep, his jaw and throat screaming from being used. After he woke Thor the best way he knew how, with fingers and tongue and breath and teeth.

There would be time. And whatever was coming, they’d meet head on. Loki was cunning and Thor was mighty. Together, they could face anything.


End file.
